DOLPHIN MUSEUM

It is really one of the most beautiful museums in Greece, known especially for its charioteer... but rich of many other wonders. Do not miss: the east and north friezes of the treasure of Siphnos, the Sphinx, the statues of Cleobis and Biton, the remains of the bull, the group of three women, the ex-voto of Daochos, the statue of Antinous and the Aurige. Please note: the museum regularly changes the room numbers and their contents.

Room at the top of the stairs: the Omphalos (which means "navel" in ancient Greek, but also in modern Greek), the sacred stone that we see first, is a copy of the famous Delphic navel that was in the temple of Apollo and became the symbol of the god and the sanctuary. According to legend, Zeus released two eagles, each at one end of the universe, agreeing that their meeting point would be the navel of the universe. The two eagles met... in Delphi. It is also possible that this sacred stone was the tomb of the serpent Python. Do not miss in the room the upper part of a stele on the left of the Omphalos and, especially, the fragments of the frieze of the theater representing the works of Heracles.

Hall of the Shields: it takes its name from the three bronze shields, of the 7th century BC, which are exposed there. The bronze griffin heads were part of the decoration of the vats which rested on tripods. The set of vats and tripods, as displayed in this room, was one of Apollo's favorite offerings.

Room of the treasure of Siphnos : one of the most beautiful rooms of the museum. It houses masterpieces of archaic art as well as the remains of the sculpted frieze of the treasure of Siphnos. This carved decoration made of Paros marble shone with beautiful colors like blue, red and yellow. The artists who made the west-south frieze, on the one hand, and the east-north frieze, on the other hand, were not the same, so we note the stylistic specificities of each set.

The eastern frieze, on the left as you enter the room, has the Trojan War as its theme and is divided into two parts: on the left, a group of gods who are interested in the battle and, on the right, the battle itself before the walls of Troy.

The group of gods is divided in two. Those who are turned to the right show their support for the Trojans: from left to right, Ares, god of war, holding his shield, then Aphrodite, Artemis, and Apollo who turns to his sister, and, finally, Zeus sitting on a throne. In front of Zeus, Thetis, Achilles' mother, whose fingers are still visible, clings to the god to beg him. It is following this supplication that Zeus momentarily favored the Trojans so that Agamemnon could repair the offense done to Achilles by taking away his maid Biseis. The gods turned to the left show their support to the Greeks. They are, from left to right, Poseidon (who is missing), then Athena, Hera and Demeter. The battle on the right side is structured around the warrior who lies on the ground. On his left, the Trojans: a quadriga and its squire, then Aeneas and Hector. On his right, the Greeks: Menelaus, king of Sparta and husband of Helen, recognizable by his shield decorated in the center with a gorgon's head, Ajax, a quadriga and his squire and, at the end on the right, Nestor who incites the Greeks to give the decisive assault.

Above this frieze, the rest of the marble pediment that adorned the eastern façade. The theme of this pediment is the dispute between Apollo and Heracles over the prophetic tripod that Heracles wishes to take in order to found his own oracle. On the left, Artemis holds back the anger of Apollo who pulls the tripod already loaded on Heracles' back. Between the two figures, in the center, Athena tries to appease them. The northern frieze, at the corner of the previous one, has for theme the fight of the gods and the giants or a gigantomachy. On the far left, Hephaestus is seen wielding his forge and, in front of him, two goddesses fighting two giants. Further right, the goddess Cybele holds a chariot pulled by two lions, one of which devours a giant.

In front of the chariot, Apollo and Artemis shoot arrows against three giants wearing helmets and shields while on the ground lies the body of the giant Astartas. Further on, two giants storm the chariot of Zeus, of which only a piece remains. In front of them, in the foreground, Hera turns around and bends down to knock down a giant who is crawling. To her right, Athena is also fighting a giant, while Ares, further to the right, is fighting two giants, one of whom is lifting a stone to knock him down. Hermes, holding his sword, attacks two giants.

At the far right, a bearded god fights two opponents, one of whom has fallen to his knees. Because this frieze is on the north face of the treasury, visitors could admire and follow this scene as they climbed the Sacred Way. The unique rhythm that animates this work is reminiscent of the spirit of the epic. The western frieze was to have as its theme the judgment of Paris. It adorned the main façade of the Siphnos treasury, just above the entrance, and consisted of three parts, two of which are visible. On the far left, Hermes is standing in front of the winged quadriga of Athena on which the goddess, also winged, is about to ride. A naked figure stands behind her, it is Hephaistos or Poseidon. In the middle, Aphrodite, whom Paris has chosen to crown as the most beautiful of women, is getting off her chariot with a necklace around her neck. In the right part, which is missing, a third chariot and a goddess, probably Hera, have been reconstructed.

The artist of this frieze and of the southern frieze delivers here a composition full of precision, style and vigor. Even mutilated, Aphrodite thus appears as the most beautiful figure of the Siphnos treasure.

The southern frieze, which is very poorly preserved, shows, from left to right, a woman in flight, then a scene of abduction, a quadriga and an altar, then another quadriga mounted by two riders. It could be the abduction by Pelops of Hippodamia, daughter of the king of Elis, Oenomaos. The center of the room is occupied by a sphinx, an offering deposited by the Naxians in the sanctuary of Apollo. This sphinx was enthroned on a column drawn up on a rock in the west of the portico of the Athenians. The total height of the building reached 12,10 m.

These elements express well the role that the creature played: erected near the source once guarded by Python, and at the limit of the ancient sanctuary of the Earth, it was like the guardian of the oracle of Gaia. In this same room, one of the two caryatids of the treasure of Siphnos can be admired.

Room of Kouroï : this room shelters the two statues in marble of Paros representing the two Argian brothers, Cleobis and Biton. It is said that their mother had to go to the sanctuary of Hera and preach on the occasion of the feast of the goddess. But the oxen not having returned from the field in time, the brothers decided to drag their mother's chariot to the sanctuary. When the two brothers should have died of exhaustion, their mother prayed to Hera to bring them a happy ending as a reward... which the goddess did by making them fall asleep forever after the festival. These statues were made in their honor and dedicated to Apollo by the Argians. One can admire the volume and density of these well-built bodies, the vigor and the impetus towards action. The huge eyes show the life that animates them. The rest of the room shows beautiful metopes of Sicyone.

Room of the Bull: in this room are grouped objects discovered after the great excavations of Delphi in a niche hidden under the Sacred Way. Here were deposited the damaged ex-votos, according to a widespread use since the^5th century B.C. The bull was found there. With the little information we have, it is difficult to imagine the beauty of this work of art, 2.61 m long and 1.46 m high, covered with silver plates fixed on a bronze frame. Yet it was undoubtedly a masterpiece. In one of the display cases on the left, we can see two gold plates that decorated the dress of a statue. They are decorated in an inversely symmetrical manner in eight small square panels, the details of which can be admired (winged animals, goats, deer, bulls...). In another display case on the left, an ivory statuette probably representing Apollo as the master of wild animals.

Room of the Athenian treasure : beautiful room presenting 24 metopes preserved among the 30 which decorated the Athenian treasure. They represent the exploits of Theseus, Heracles and an amazonomachy.

First room of the temple of Apollo : on the wall to the left of the entrance, one can see the remains of the western pediment of the temple of Apollo. It is still a gigantomachy remarkable for the solemnity of the sculptures and the movement given to the scene. On the left, a giant seems to be crawling, while a little further on, on the right, we can see Athena throwing herself on the side, then a part of a character that could be Apollo and finally the front part of two horses. Do not miss also, on the other side of the entrance, the foundation stones of the southern wall of the Athenian treasury. Two hymns to Apollo are engraved there: the musical notes above each line of the text formed the accompanying melody. This melody was played for the first time, from 138 BC, by a choir of about fifty artists from Athens, called Dionysians.

Second room of the temple of Apollo : on the wall in front of the entrance, the remains of the eastern pediment of the temple of Apollo. As we had observed during the visit of the sanctuary, this pediment was realized by the Alcméonides in marble of Paros whereas the estimate envisaged tuff... It is that it was necessary that the temple is the most beautiful possible! The theme illustrated on the pediment was the arrival of Apollo in Delphi (epiphany), with his mother Leto and his sister Artemis. One can recognize the quadriga of the god in the center of the pediment, a lion killing a bull in the left corner and another devouring a deer in the right corner. The animals' wounds had been painted in red, blue or yellow to make them look more real. Above the entrance to the room, a large plaque recalls that the Roman emperor Domitian repaired the temple of Apollo at his own expense in 84 A.D. Notice also the statue of Nike flying near the pediment.

Room of the funerary steles : on the wall to the left of the entrance, you can see the marble funerary stela of a young athlete. He is cleaning his skin after the fight to remove the dust and oil he had coated himself with before his fight. His servant, on the right, holds a round vase containing perfumed oil, while his dog looks on, raising its muzzle towards its master. This work of great harmony reveals once again a perfect mastery of drawing and execution. On the same wall, be sure to stop by the ceramics in the display cases. In the middle of the room, notice also the round altar. It is a part of the base of the tholos of the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia, reconstructed and completed in plaster. The detail of the metopes of this circular building is exposed in the room IX, but, attention, the change of rooms is not impossible!

Room of the tholos : it exposes the metopes of the tholos which were best preserved. One recognizes easily in these scenes of amazonomachy and centauromachy (fight of the Lapithes against the Centaurs) the Attic influence of the sculptors of the Parthenon or the Erectheion, one thinks besides that the artists at the origin of these frescos had been trained in Athens. From left to right, we can see: a centaur, a horse rearing up, a Greek fallen on his knees, a man walking towards a column on which appears a female character. Do not miss the other fragments of sculptures coming from other metopes of the tholos exposed in the rest of the room.

Room of Agias: one of the masterpieces of this room is the marble group of three young women who seem to be dancing.

Their high headdress was surmounted by a bronze bowl resting on tripods. Their legs are animated with a slow, cadenced movement that gives the impression of dancing. Their right arm is raised, but the left arm holds the tunic which is probably flying under the effect of their movements. The grace of their almost imperceptible smile, their fine and serious faces, their wavy hair and their finely worked earrings, everything seems to blossom in this great composition. Opposite, we see six statues supported by a long base visible in the sanctuary of Apollo. They constituted the offering of the representative of Thessaly, Daochos II, to Apollo, in 335 BC. Apollo appeared (disappeared statue) in this great series of statues of which the most outstanding remains that of Agias. It was a young athlete who won several times the Panhellenic games, which took place in the^5th century BC in Olympia, Delphi, Nemea. Represented naked, he is admirable by the naturalness of his attitude and expression. His body seems perfectly balanced and his tormented and stubborn look gives the impression that he is once again ready for battle. Next to him, the statue of Sisyphos II is that of the son of Daochos II and, still next to him, Agealos, the brother of Agias. Winner in the race to the Pythian games, Agealos is the type even of the young ephebe, with the flexible and slim body, the fine and vigorous legs, the face full of charm. If we were to retain only one thing of this alignment of statues, it would probably be the effort of the artist to break the monotony of the faces, the statures and the gestures.

The room of Antinous being partly transferred here, in room XI, we will devote this paragraph to it. We find there many figurines of Mycenaean idols and, especially, a statue of Antinous, Hadrian's favorite, famous for his beauty.

This statue is part of a cult rendered to Antinous after his premature death in the Nile: Hadrian took care to honor the memory of his companion, notably in Delphi, by minting coins with his effigy and by erecting a statue in the sanctuary of Apollo.

This one represents him with a heavy curly hair falling on his neck and his cheeks, his head is slightly leaned on the left as if he had just received the honors, his rounded chin, his fleshy lips and his soft and dreamy eyes give him a deliberately sensual expression. His statue was coated with perfumed oil to emphasize the cult that was paid to him. In the same room, do not miss the statues of the smiling girl, the pensive philosopher and the little boy carrying a goose.

Room of the Aurige: it houses without doubt the most beautiful statue of the museum, or at least the most famous! This 1.80 m high bronze statue represents an charioteer who shows off his chariot to the crowd after his victory. The charioteer and his quadriga formed a magnificent bronze group given as an offering to Apollo by the tyrant Polyzalos, victorious in a chariot race at the Pythian Games in 478 BC. The set had been deposited a little east of the niche of Cratéros, then buried under an earthquake which had the merit of preserving it almost intact (only the left arm is missing). The artist to whom we owe this masterpiece is unknown.

The charioteer is a handsome, athletic, broad-shouldered but slim and elegant ephebe, surely a young aristocrat of the time. He wears the xystis, the long tunic of the chariot drivers tightened by a belt and going down to the thin ankles. The belt is above the hips, as it must have been for the dress of the charioteers, but this does not generate any disproportion: the slenderness of the body is emphasized. His gestures are supple: the arm is stretched without stiffness and the hands hold what was probably a goad. One can spend hours contemplating the fineness of the fingers, the rendering of their folds or even the movement of the arm specified down to the detail of the veins that swell... The hair is glued by the sweat of the effort and tied up by a wide band that is that of the winners. Finally, we can admire the face: the chin is heavy and powerful, the eyes animated by a strange benevolence and the eyelashes almost too real to be true.